HEYTHROP COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
KENSINGTON SQUARE, LONDON W8 5HN
SATURDAY 19 MAY 2012
What does it mean, to live a ‘good life’? This is a perennial question, of interest to all people, not least philosophers and theologians. What is goodness? Is it to be identified with God? How do we become good? What is a ‘good’ human being, or a ‘good’ society? The question has both theoretical and practical dimensions: theoretical questions of theology, philosophy, psychology, ethics; and practical questions of how to live, in a variety of contexts, such as ecology, religious life, literature and the arts. What are today’s greatest challenges to attaining the good life? Where do we look for wisdom about the good life – to which thinkers, traditions, texts and examples?
The Heythrop College interdisciplinary postgraduate and research students’ conference is an annual event. This year the aim is to explore these and other questions (the list is not exhaustive) from different perspectives. We are therefore inviting short papers from postgraduate and research students in different disciplines, or those who have recently completed their degrees, which will address some aspect of the topic, ‘The Good Life: Public, Personal, Private’. Heythrop College specialises in philosophy, theology and embraces related fields of psychology and sociology, but we do not wish to confine the short papers to these disciplines, since we recognise that questions about the good life may be approached from a wide range of perspectives.
The short papers will be given in parallel sessions. Each paper should be 20 minutes in length and there will be ten minutes for questions, comment and discussion after each paper.
If you wish to have a short paper considered for inclusion in the conference, please send an abstract of 500 words to Dr. Edward Howells, Heythrop College, University of London, Kensington Square, London W8 5HN (e.howells@heythrop.ac.uk) by Monday 19 March 2012.
